Scenario verdict
The agent workspace separates the two options
WebChat documents that website enquiries arrive in a configured Microsoft Teams channel and that an agent response from the related thread returns to the visitor. Daily work can therefore remain in Teams. Vendor material also describes Entra SSO, per-channel licensing and Power Platform paths, while numeric prices, DPA, hosting region and retention remain unresolved.
Chatwoot is a separate customer-support platform with a shared inbox. It is available as a cloud service or for self-hosting. Self-hosting provides infrastructure choice but requires PostgreSQL, Redis, email delivery, upgrades, backups, monitoring and incident ownership. The current official integration catalogue lists Slack and custom APIs/webhooks, but does not document a native Microsoft Teams agent workflow.
Symmetric evidence
What the current primary sources support
| Criterion | WebChat | Chatwoot |
|---|---|---|
| Agent surface | Teams channel post and thread reply | separate Chatwoot inbox |
| Channels | website, WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok claimed | website, email and messaging channels by plan or deployment |
| Commercial model | per channel; numeric amount unknown | cloud per agent or self-hosted Community software |
| Automation | Power Platform and own AI with additional prerequisites | automation and Captain AI depend on plan |
| Data control | product region, DPA and retention still open | review cloud terms or own infrastructure duties when self-hosting |
| Implementation | widget and Teams configuration | configure a cloud inbox or operate a full application stack |
Price and TCO
Free software does not remove operating cost
On 10 August 2026 Chatwoot's cloud pricing page listed Hacker at USD 0 per agent per month for up to two agents, 500 monthly conversations, live chat and 30-day retention. Annually billed Startups, Business and Enterprise plans were shown at USD 19, 39 and 99 per agent per month. Features, AI credits and retention differ, so every amount requires a fresh pre-purchase check.
Community software can remove a software licence charge, but servers, databases, Redis, mail, object storage, TLS, security maintenance, backups and on-call ownership remain. WebChat's numeric amount is not yet verified; only its channel metric is documented. Compare a written WebChat quote against either Chatwoot agent pricing or the real internal self-hosting cost over the same 36-month workload.
Proof of concept
Four acceptance gates before procurement
- 01
Agent work
Assign, transfer, answer on mobile and retrieve the same ten conversations.
- 02
Cost basis
Normalise channels, agents, volume, retention, AI, implementation and operations over 36 months.
- 03
Data path
Verify DPA, regions, subprocessors, export, deletion, backup and incident duties in writing.
- 04
Failure path
Test widget failure, Teams or inbox outage, rollback and recovery with named owners.